AdamH's Brets - Pour la dame! (205 pts)

Are my terrible google translate titles hitting the mark?

I will be honest this month was really touch and go for me, I was painting literally up to the last minute, I’m sure the clocks going forward were to blame… but seriously I had a business trip that lost me a week and some house renovations that left me without a place to paint that wiped out another week. So it will probably surprise some of you to learn that model count wise this month is my highest so far!

However, before you get too excited, I was only able to paint so many models because 12/13 of them were basically the same model, and simple ones at that. I present to you my batch painted mono-pose archers:

You may notice that these guys have the same style as my previously posted mounted yeomen, this is to fit into the theme that I mentioned in a previous post; the peasants all coming from Bertrand Brigand’s band of happy guys. To this extent they all follow the same muted brown and green scheme seen on my yeomen.

These were one of the last mono-pose figures GW released and I think it shows in their design. I actually really like the models and being archers’ sort of fits their ridged pose. It would be nice to have a few other variations than the two but we can’t have everything. I’m thinking next month we may even see the unit’s name sake.

Next up we have the first of the characters, a damsel, or rules wise a level two wizard:

I’m thinking that all of the royalty in my force will have variations on blue and gold, starting with this lady. Sporting a deep blue dress with gold trim and white veil/cloak. I am planning to carry something similar over to the Grail Knights when I get onto them. I sort of ran out of time this month as mentioned above so she was painted in a day. There are a few things I am not 100% happy with so I may go back and touch it up at a later date.

This month I am submitting:

121 - Level 2 Wizard (i.e. Damsel) on Warhorse

84 – 12x Bergerac Bowmen

For a total of 205 points.

Finally, since we are now at the half-way point I thought it would be nice to show my progress so far. This is definitely the most progress I have ever made with an army in such a short period of time, the challenge is an excellent motivator and I am already planning a force for next year should I be invited back!

Please let me know what you think of my entry this month and if you have any tips for improvement.

-         AdamH

Dustin’s Goblins - Beware the Red Eyes of March! (208 points)

After last month’s trolls, it’s back to the massed infantry. These scum are the start of my main block of Night Goblins, some Kev Adams classics from the early Nineties (plus a newer champion from Knightmare Games/Crooked Claw).

22 Night Goblins with Double-Handed Weapons, Shields, Standard Bearer, Musician — 96 points

2 Night Goblin Fanatics — 60 points

Night Goblin Boss with Double-Handed Weapon and Shield — 18 points

Night Goblin Big Boss with Shield — 34 points

I’ve had some of them since 1997 or so (better painted late than never). As I was attending Cold Wars in mid-March, I had a great motivation for getting these guys painted in time for some gaming with Airbornegrove26 and Blue in VT.

My ultimate plan is to expand this mob up to 40, and add some command figures to the mobs of stikkas I painted at the beginning of the challenge, so I know what I’ll be working on in April!

Sybou's undeads ... Not dead yet! (220 points)

Hello everyone,

that's it, I made it! The month of March was realy hard to finish. I had a big rush at the beginning but the final touches were long to finish.

Anyway I did it, I m still in the challenge.

For this month, I made what was planned, 13 skeletons and a skeleton/ Wight King.

The month of March

So here there are. All gathered in one picture.

The command group and specialists

It s always good to have some proper specialists in the squad. The cloaked one with skull bomb is really fun. The skeletons range was full of crazy guys like the one holding is head, it s to see farer I guess. The bowman is from Marauder line, these guys are generally bulkier.

Like Iannick did for his banner, I stayed with a two colors banner, no icon or symbol there.

The last warriors

Only two shields amongst them. A beastman skeleton from Ra Partha and a couple of marauder guys.

That makes my skeletons unit finished for the challenge. Yeeaaahhh!!!

Unfortunately, I made the pictures in my appartment and the rest of the skellies are at my parents' home, so I don't have a complete unit photo.

The Wight King

Straight from the Night Horror Range, this guy is scary as hell. It was really cool to paint and I gave him the usual resin base from Scibor.

The Month of April

The Necromancer is here, cortesy of Tom Young. And the start of the ghouls unit, 16! This is going to be a hard month, I'm telling you.

To finish, here is a bonus unit:

Zombies!

These guys are really fun to paint, they're a mix of dead man of Dunharrow, citadel and Morley's zombies. I got a unit of 50 so here are 10, a good start.

Bbrraaaiiinnns ....

To conclude this post, I d like to thank Sean who adviced me on using snapseed. I think my photos are better now, less dark. I use the filter named "morning" which is cool.

I hope you enjoyed my post, for March I did 220 pts, which is a total of 640 pts.

Now lets get ready for April.

ZeroTwentythree's March Sea Elves (212 pts)

I'm well entrenched in a pattern of things not going according to plan at this point. I had planned on painting 16 spear elves, including a musician, and being done with it as a simple month. But a change in plans for the shields (looking for more of the newer, embossed elf shields rather than the older plain ones) set me back a bit. Not a major change, but to keep my OWAC point count on the level, I subtracted the cost of the shields (which will hopefully be painted later...)

That left me a few points short. I figured I could paint another spear elf or two, but then remembered I had a figure set aside to "pay the piper" as it's referred to in the OWAC rules.  It's voluntary, but I already had plans to do it, so I'm working on that to make up the difference. I'm going to keep it a secret until it arrives at its destination. I like the idea of sending surprise miniatures from my experience with the Warhammer-Empire.com "Pleasant Surprises" miniatures exchange. You'll all have to trust me that it's painted.

The spear elves are the old plastic 4th ed. figures, same as the archers. My long time plan was to use both as the core for a sea elf contingent. As with the archers, I've got mixed feelings on the minis, but they look OK painted up. The colors on the photos are all messed up -- there's more variety in the blues and greens, and the gems are also bright red in person. I was going to do another write up about the background, but this month has been exhausting so backstory and photo corrections may have to wait.

So...

16 Spear Elves (spears, light armour, musician): 187 points

1 Secret miniature for Iannick: 25 points

Total to date:  620 points

I will more than likely be taking my mulligan in April. I've got more travelling for work, have another deadline the first week of April, and although I will try to get some prep work and a head-start on the OWAC minis, April is "Big April" for me, and I'd like to keep the tradition alive and paint some giants without having to worry about other obligations (as much as possible...)

Lissanne's Chaos Demons- Mother and child reunion (244 pts)

Originally, I had no dragon ogres when I planned to do demons.  But in November, Blue gave me one for a song, and at Xmas, I got a scorpion person for a gift, who I promptly dubbed Milton.  In the spirit of painting presents I decided to do both for the challenge. Here is unopened Milton, who wasn't in the original silver post.

I didn't want to do a quick shabby job on either of these, or any of this army for that matter, and I especially wanted to do the Oldhammer dragon ogre up well, since it was love at first sight with the model.  I named her Magnolia.  I actually spent most of the month on that figure, and hope it shows!

On Magnolia, I created both a pattern of scales and fur hide armor, and used some NMM flat painting tricks to create a fancy axes on both dragon ogres where there were plain flat blades.  There was a small mystery area on the back of Magnolia which wasn't well cast, so I added a couple of spines, plus it came with no left hand, so it got one, and a nice shield also.  The shield was another present this one from Oldhammer in the New World for entering a painting comp.  Since it was large and looked like it had the Lammasu face of my Ignatz, it was perfect!

Demonettes-

  Echo, a 2nd Lewdfang model. I was not thrilled about painting another snake head demonette that can't be manga-fied at all, but I ended up thinking up a fluff story to make her fit.  Not all the demonettes have a humanish face, but my 2nd this month does, being another Fiendthrob and I dubbed her Miriam Nova as I based her on the anime character Milim Nava.

  On to the fluff:

  Let us depart for a moment from our regularly scheduled post full of depravity, and focus on a doting mother and her growing child

First, I will present the beautiful Magnolia, beloved of Ignatz.  She has a such a winning smile, and is visibly favored by Slaanesh, who graced her body with vivid colors in addition to monstrous fertility.  She carries a shield bearing the image of her Ignatz and slays everything in his name.

Next, on to the lovely child of Magnolia and Ignatz, Milton, who is a bundle of energy.  He has his mother's spines and his father's tail, and counts as another Dragon Ogre.  Who is going to argue with him and tell him otherwise?

Now we return to our regularly scheduled depravity.

2 demonettes- more Cheerleaders of Chaos!

   Miriam Nova tries to look extra cute to cover the fact that when Slaanesh was passing out breasts she didn't get any.  So she wears a padded shirt and pretends.  Always hungry, she has a tendency to eat her playmates too early and then look for more.  Watch out- you may be next!

Echo-  Snaketongue was gifted an unusual ability by Slaanesh.  When she is about to enter combat, a shadowy blue duplicate of her fights independently with her and the others in her unit, and disappears when the battle is over.   The demonettes are always alerted for an upcoming battle by the appearance of Echo, as they call her.  Very useful!

So, this month:  2 Dragon Ogres (87 pts each) and 2 Demonettes (35 pts each) for a total of 244 pts.  And the Demonettes are now a unit of 5 and fieldable.

   Next month I am planning to finish the my 3 half finished chaos spawn (which I was dabbing at this month) , maybe do some demonettes and definitely work on Ignatz.

So here is the obligatory pic of this army as it stands now, at the halfway point

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Brennan's Gator Boys! A March post for 208 points

Beware the frogs of March!

March brought out the first of two units of suit-wearers for the Slann.  The "suite-wearers" or knights, as some explorers called them, where elite forces/warrior orders in Aztec society.  My apologies to the more verbose and literate, but I chose to be extremely brief on the subject.

I did get a bit of chuckle out of a unit of frogs wearing alligator skins as heavy armor... Kinda a role reversal eh?

The unit provides some heavy hitting power to the Slann.  Heavy armor and double-handed weapons means that these frogs can keep the same pace as the fellas with light and shield but not loose protection when they use their macy tails to full effect.

15 Alligator Warriors w 2 Handed Weapons and a Standard = 208 points for March!

Next month is up in the air, it will either be a frog on a shelf or the 15 Eagle Warriors....

goblinpaladin's Wood Elves - a March update (264 points)

Happy March, friends! In contrast to my usual waffle, I'll try and be brief this month.

my delicate camerawork strikes again

This month sees those archers finished off, another five wardancers, and two characters.

5 archers, including a nice unit leader sculpt in lead. 55 points.
5 wardancers. 100 points.
Kaia Stormwitch, as a level 5 Hero + Battle Standard. 98 points.
Aenur, the Sword of Twilight. Just an archer unit leader here, for 11 points.

A total of 264 points. Alphanumeric!

♪ beneath the trees / where nobody sees ♫

I'm kind of sad to see the last of those plastic archers go, but it's really great to see the rank-and-file get done. This project will eventually have a regiment of spear-elf regulars, but that's outside the scope of the OWAC.

archer, captain of archers

i have to learn not to pick him up by the bow, though

The unit leader is just a standard archer sculpt, I think. He turns up all the time in other wood elf projects. Is he in the other wood elf armies here at the Challenge? Why not look at their posts and find out?

no littering

As I have 28 or so plastic archers, I decided to use metal figures so that unit leaders stand out. Unfortunately, I've only got the chap above so far, so in order to meet the legal requirements, I'm counting Aenur the Sword of Twilight as one of those unit leaders. Of course, his sword means he won't rank up with his new friends! Typical.

a hint of gleaming mithril beneath his green-and-grey cloak

Aenur, the Sword of Twilight, is a character from Games Workshop's Mordheim skirmish game. Mordheim's an urban setting, but you can see that he works pretty well in green and on a lush base with pretty flowers.

swoosh

what mould line

I got this elf free in a White Dwarf some twenty years ago and he's been rattling around ever since. The white metal was long since grey, but the sculpt held up perfectly cleanly. He was really fun to paint. I feel like I did him justice.

she is real hard to photograph. well, maybe just hard for ME

Kaia Stormwitch is one of the oldest named characters in Warhammer, being the wizard-scout-standard bearer for Skarloc's Archers, a Regiment of Renown since the second edition. Also, for all Warhammer's well-deserved modern reputation for being scarce on female characters, she's a lady.

that hair must be a pain to condition

I don't know that I've really done a good job on her dress. I was aiming vaguely at a kind of deerskin light brown with a greenish grey (but more grey) lining. I'm okay with where I've landed, but I could have done better, I think.

she's a character, so she gets a resin stump. the rewards of rank.

I'm going to use her as a Battle Standard Bearer, but the sculpt is very witchy. She has several bags and satchels, a flask, and a small herb bundle all tied to her waist, as well as quite a number of pieces of jewellery. In keeping with the vaguely-Celtic allusions of Goodwin's elf line, I've painted those in bronzes. I've also started experimenting with the fancy new gemstone paints, both here and on the wardancers (below).

"a heart-shaped casket holding the ashes of a legendary Elven Hero, Kern son of the goddess Torothal"

Gemstone paints are pretty neat, but I'm not sure they're significantly better than just using some glazes or something. 

transformers! more than meets the eye! wait that's not the right caption

God, I love painting these sculpts so much. Maybe I should try and collect all the wardancer sculpts? No. That's insane. I shouldn't do that. Or should I? No. Yes? No. Yes? No.

my favourite part was the nipples

okay my favourite part was actually the torc but i had you going

I don't really have much to say about each of these sculpts, except that they are ridiculously lovely to paint. Some interesting details to show the character of each figure, but not so much that I get annoyed and cross; simple and straightforward, but not repetitive. A joy. Citadel's modern designers, with their CADs and their tendency to have everything dripping in webbing or with ridiculous smoke sculpted on, could take some lessons from the 80s masters.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

well i guess you only really need armour on the bits facing the other guy

I originally washed this guy's feathers in bright colours before deciding to go with a fairly naturalistic approach, based on falcon and eagle feathers - and one cheeky kingfisher blue, because this is a fantasy game. He has a vaguely North American feel, in contrast to the Celtic sense I get from most of the other sculpts in the range.

i used to have leg muscles like that (this isn't true)

she gon' mess you up

the unemotional ceramic mask just screams 'peaceful tree hugger' to me

There's so much to love about this sculpt. The ceramic mask, the carefully placed pieces of armour, the sense of threatening motion. I absolutely love it.

gotta line up that javelin shot just right

i really could not get a photo of the front, sorry folks

One of the best details about this range is how stripped back the armour is. I've gone with bronze circlets sewn into the leather here, with a bit of iron chainmail. The bronze adds warm colour against the blue-highlighted black, as well as a bit of a Bronze Age-feeling in keeping with the vaguely Celtic stuff I keep mentioning.

 Like with the plating on the woman with twin swords and the stripped-back jerkin on the halberd-wielding elf, the range conveys a sense that armour is rare and expensive, that you have to do the best with what you can get. It feels really early medieval and authentic.

this guy is so goddamn terrifying

even when you can't see his eyepatch, he still has a freakin' claw gauntlet

 I go back and forth on what my favourite wardancer sculpt is, but as soon as I saw this guy in the old catalogues, I knew I really wanted him. He has a claw gauntlet and an eyepatch. What is his goddamn deal?  when I get around to doing shields, I'm going to have to give him one of those old spiky shields or one with a spider on it or something cool.

The red lacquer effect on his shoulder was done by layering Blood for the Blood God paint over silver highlighted up to Mithril Silver. I wanted to avoid his whole right arm being too same-y, in the cold iron. I don't know if the composition works or if the eye has to go around too much of the figure, but I'm pretty happy with him overall.

HeroQuest: Elf Quest Pack cover art detail, Donald Kueker. © Games Workshop and Milton Bradley, 1992.

That's it for this month, elf-friends. See you in late April, when I will be another year older and another couple of painted Old World miniatures richer. Oh, and about my promise to be briefer? Sorry about that.